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Money-Saving Tip: Shop at Multiple Grocery Stores

For reasons of competition, store policy, or who knows what, some stores just offer better prices on certain items than other stores. Shopping strategically across several stores means that we can rea...

Good Question: Fast, Cheap and Healthy Breakfast Ideas?

Here's a great question from Nick, who asks: I eat breakfast at my desk at work. It usually consists of store-bought cereal, a cup of yogurt, or oatmeal from the cafeteria. But I'm bored with all that...

Homemade Stock: What's Your Routine?

In his latest book Ratio, Michael Ruhlman makes a very strong argument for passing on the store-bought stuff and making your own stock at home. He says (and then repeats again and again), "So much of ...

Top Five: Ways to Eat a Fried Egg

A nicely fried egg with crispy edges and a warm, runny yolk is one of life's greatest simple pleasures. We realized long ago that fried eggs are just as delicious after 9am as they are before, and we'...

Campfire Cooking: Best Easy, Frugal Foods for Camping
Guest Post from Tina and Phil of 30 Bucks a Week

When planning what to cook on your camping trip, there are a few basic considerations. First, assuming you are setting up your tent fireside rather than setting up folding chairs outside your RV, you...

What to Do With... An Old Dutch Oven?

A few weeks ago, our beloved dutch oven developed a chip in its enamel, and after much deliberation, we've decided to go ahead and replace it. (Thank you, everyone, for all your great advice!) Here's ...

Quick Tip: How to Build a Make-Shift Cooling Rack

Remember how we were gathering essential cookware for a month away from our kitchen? Well, we completely forgot about potentially needing a cooling rack and a thorough search of the cupboards in our t...

Chipped Enamel: Need to Replace This Cookware?

See that little black spot?! That is a dime-sized chip in the bottom of our enamel-coated dutch oven. We've definitely put this pot through its paces, so it's not a huge surprise that it finally chipp...

Recycle, Re-Juice: Re-Juicer from Amrom Experimental

Do you need a juicer for all those summer cocktails? Well, this one looks pretty good; it is basic and simple, and it does what you need it to do. There's a twist, though. ...

The Eternal Leftover
Guest Post from Katie Workman, Editor in Chief of Cookstr.com

When it comes to leftovers, the world splits itself into three groups (to immediately digress, there are so many things in the world that divide people into groups — mostly two groups, a.k.a. ha...

Five Ideas for Leftover Rice

As much as we adore a steaming pot of freshly cooked rice, we've always had trouble mustering much enthusiasm once it crosses into the land of leftovers. Sure, there's fried rice, which can be delicio...

How to Use Up a Little Pesto

Have you been making pesto this spring? If not with basil, maybe some kale or spinach? Or other fresh herbs? Pesto is a beautiful, early summer food—that is occasionally hard to use all in one sitti...

Tip: Use Mushroom Stems in Your Next Omelet
Gourmet

All too often we slice the caps of our mushrooms and toss the stems. It's especially tempting when working with portabellas, where the wide, meaty caps are the the main event, and the stems are an aft...

Do You Stock the Fridge for Family When You Leave Town?

We're out of town this weekend, but we left a culinarily challenged husband at home. When this happens, we try to leave a few dishes in the refrigerator that taste fine warmed up (and cost less than t...

Table Manners: "FHB on the Pie"

A friend recently told us about a quirky (we thought!) dinner table rule she had in her family. Whenever there was company over, her mom would set certain dishes on the table and quietly say, "FHB on ...

Canning in the City
The New York Times 5.27.09

It's not really news that canning fruits and vegetables is on the rise. We've talked about preserving and pickling here and here and here. But The New York Times Dining section has some more encourage...

Conscientious Cook: What Should You Buy Organic?

Here's the scenario: you're trying to stick to a pretty tight food budget, but you're also conscientious about the food you buy. You can only afford to buy one or two organic items a week. What do you...

Cheap Eats: 10 Ways to Use a Can of Tuna

Despite concerns about mercury, tuna remains one of the most economical ways to feed yourself on the fly. It's quick, it's cheap, and... OK, it's really boring if all you ever do is make it into tuna ...

Cooking Confessions: Do You Eat Your Mistakes?

What we didn't show you in our photo of delicious sweet potato fries the other week was this handful of burned chips! We weren't paying attention while cooking one of the batches, and several of the t...

Tip: Slice Asparagus in the Food Processor

Why, exactly? Well, we have a few good reasons... ...

Good Use for Leftovers: Arancini

As the picture suggests, these are nothing more than fried rice balls, and they are a great way to use leftover risotto or even plain white rice. Most of them have a surprise inside. Do you know what ...

Trader Joe's Pasta Wins a Taste Test
New York Magazine

May the cheapest pasta win! That's what happened, anyway, when New York convened a panel to sample different store-bought, dried pasta. At 99 cents a pound, TJ's was the least expensive pasta of the b...

Neighborhood Fruit: Where To Find Fruit On Public Land

Plant a Recovery Garden, Save on Your Organic Grocery Bill

I don't dare do the math on my garden: divide the total amount of money put into the garden each year by the number of tomatoes, melons, peppers, bunches of sage, etc. we ended up eating. Given all th...